Themes
by Osanagokorochi
Summary: A series of drabbles taken from a set of prompts. Character studies for Riddick, Jack, Imam, and all our other Riddick universe favorites. Rated T for safety.
1. 2 am

**Author's Note: Can't remember where I found this list of prompts, but if someone knows who wrote them, lemme know so I can give credit where it's due.**

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1. 2 am

They'd been on the ship for eleven days now. Closer and closer to their destination they came, as Imam never failed to remind Jack. He seemed to think it would be a comfort to her—knowing that she'd finally be able to set foot on a planet that didn't promise monsters or convicted killers.

It wasn't.

To her surprise, it was Riddick himself who noticed first. But then, that man didn't miss anything.

"What's eating you, kid?" he asked her one morning after she'd wandered into the common room and unconsciously bumped her shoulder against the door, drawing a soft series of curses. Several of them she'd learned from Riddick over the course of their time together.

Jack took a seat at the table common across from the convict, not looking at him, eyes focusing and unfocusing on the tabletop.

"Nothing," she grumbled.

Riddick grunted. Yeah, like he believed that. But if she didn't want to talk about it, he wasn't going to argue.

Jack let her head drop onto the table with a painful slam. It took her head a little while to realize it hurt. By then, she didn't really care.

"I can't sleep," she said, finally.

"That so?" was the response. She couldn't lie and tell herself that she'd hoped for a better reaction. Maybe something that betrayed even the tiniest bit of concern. Anything to make her feel better right now.

"What?" there was a mocking tone to his voice. "Bad dreams?"

Jack actually managed to roll her head off of the table for that one. She couldn't see his eyes through the goggles that he hadn't removed since they boarded the ship, but she gave him as level a look as she could muster before dropping her head back down with a resigned sigh.

"Yeah," she breathed. "Something like that."

She didn't elaborate, and he didn't ask.

Jack lay awake in her bed, staring at the featureless shadows on the ceiling. She'd been fingering the growing fuzz on the skin of her head, wondering how long it would take to grow back. How long it would take before she didn't look like him anymore. How long it would take for him to forget about her once she was safely deposited on New Mecca. He'd leave—she'd grown sure of that. At least, that's what she was most afraid of. Her nightmares had only emphasized that worry.

As tired as she was, she had no desire to seek sleep and the embrace of dreams. She rolled from her bunk and tiptoed out the door on unclothed feet. They carried her to the door she'd come to only once before—the first night they'd arrived. She'd been together with him and Imam for so long—well, just a week or so, but it felt like an eternity after what they'd been through. She'd been used to company when she slept, or at least the surety that someone watched over her while she did.

"Whatcha doing, kid?"

Jack jumped, gasping out loud, as he emerged from the shadows. It was creepy enough that he did that—even worse when she had fully expected him to be somewhere else. But if she really thought about it, she couldn't have expected him to be in the bunk he'd been given. He didn't seem like the type to like small spaces, and she'd never seen him sleep.

"Riddick!" she whispered harshly, angry that he'd caught her at what she'd been about to do. "You scared the crap outta me!"

"Gonna answer the question, or do I gotta think up my own reasons you came to my bunk at 2 am?"

Jack prayed the darkness hid her blush, then remembered he could see in the dark. She prayed even harder those goggles did something to hinder his augmented sight.

"Fuck you," was all Jack could come up with.

"Very creative," Riddick commended her.

Steamed, Jack charged at the larger man, pushing past him and striding back down the hall. Tears threatened her tired eyes, but she wouldn't let them come. Couldn't let herself cry in front of him. Couldn't let him think he'd made her cry—she wasn't weak. She was just…tired.

She ducked into her room and flung herself on the bed, face landing on the pillow. She couldn't breathe through the fabric. She let her lungs suffer for a bit until she was sure she'd staved off the waterworks. When she finally came up for air, though, the first breath came as a great sniff.

"Dreams that bad, kid?"

Fuck. She'd left the door open. Fuck.

"Go away."

"You can come to my room but I can't come to yours?"

"I didn't actually go in," she growled defensively. She could feel the frustration building a knot in her chest, but she held tight to it. Wouldn't cry.

"Who says I'm in?"

Jack turned to glare at him, eyes red-rimmed. He was leaning in her open doorway, as if nothing was wrong. She felt his eyes on her through the tinted lenses. As uneasy as that made her feel, his presence was comforting. But the knot was still there.

"Just, go away, Riddick," she said again, grabbing her pillow and hugging it close. She didn't want him to go—that was the exact opposite of what she wanted. Why couldn't she just ask him to stay?

Stay and what? Watch her while she slept? Oh, yeah, that'd go over well.

"Okay," he shrugged himself off of the door frame. "If that's what you really want."

He said it as if he knew what she were thinking. She hated that, too.

"W-wait," she said so quietly, she didn't think he'd hear it. Hoped he wouldn't hear it. She actually flinched when she heard him take a step back and stick his head back through the door.

"What is it?" He sounded smug.

She bit her lip—a horribly girlish thing she'd never been able to suppress when she'd acted like a boy. She did it whenever she was faced with something she really didn't want to do.

"I…I…."

"Spit it out, kid."

"I…kinda…got used to having you guys around," she mumbled finally, turning to look at him almost at the corner of her eye. "You know, when I was sleeping."

"Alone in the dark not quite your thing?"

"Nah," Jack said. "That was always your thing."

There was a short laugh through the darkness. The knot loosened a little.

"Want me to scare away the monsters?" he mocked. "Get rid of the bogeyman?"

"No!" Jack said, irritated, then deflated. "Well…."

He just nodded his head, an ironic and knowing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Just ask me, kid."

She was too tired to be shocked, but was pretty close.

"You…you'd stay?"

"If it means you're gonna stop being the merry ray of sunshine you've been over the past few days."

She threw a pillow at him. He caught it and threw it back.

"Just go to sleep."

She held the pillow for a couple moments, staring at him, as if scared he'd change his mind the minute she turned around.

"Well?" he gestured to the bed.

Jack smiled. She lay the pillow down and rested her head on it, pulling the bedclothes up to her shoulder, fisting them under her chin. She couldn't keep her eyes open to make sure that Riddick was still there among the shadows, but she made believe she could hear his breathing, like the deep rumble of his voice. She yawned lazily.

"G'night," she mumbled, only half-aware she'd said it.

"Sweet dreams," the amused reply rolled from the shadows.

And for the first time since they'd left that dark planet, she had them.

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**AN: Any kind of reviews would be welcome—especially ones considering the character personalities. These little things are actually my practice for capturing Riddick and the others on paper so I do them justice. Let me know if I succeed. If I don't, any suggestions are helpful.**


	2. Sky

**AN: Another drabble. Takes place after '2 am.' Just to say, my Riddick world doesn't include 'Dark Fury,' which I thought was a good idea but a very sad execution. These little snippets are actually helping me to build up to a bigger Riddick project.**

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3. Sky

Stepping off a ship had never been so weird as this.

Sure, they'd been in space for two weeks. That was longer than Jack had ever been on a ship at one time before. But after everything she'd seen, everything she'd been through, there was something profoundly…different about everything. And it wasn't just that she'd never been to New Mecca before.

"What's the hold up?"

Jack looked back—she was blocking a couple of people from getting off of the ship, Riddick being one of them.

"Oh," Jack skipped out of the way and let the rest of the crew disembark. As per an earlier agreement, Riddick helped the men unload some of the cargo, easily hefting twice what the other two were carrying.

Jack wasn't terribly impressed—she'd seen it all before. Besides, she was much more interested in figuring out why this place felt so…weird.

She looked around at the buildings—none of them below two stories, and all crafted of stone and steel. From what she could see, a lot of them were almost artfully done. New Mecca was obviously built to awe—suiting of the name the holy people had given it, in memory of a city now long lost.

There were colors here that Jack hadn't seen much of back at home. At least, not displayed where everyone could see them like that. Deep reds, rich golds, silky blues and greens. Even the people were so many different colors. Looking up, Jack gazed at the clouds and colors overhead. They, too, were different from home. The atmosphere here was strange, and even in the late afternoon, the stars didn't show yet. Not even in the darker places.

"Is something the matter?"

Jack looked around—Imam was regarding her with a little concern.

"It's just weird, is all," Jack shrugged the question, aware that now Riddick was watching her, too. "Being in a different place."

Imam sighed and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. She looked at him again.

"I am sorry," he told her solemnly, quietly, so that only she could hear. "Sorry that you had to go through what you have. One so young should not have had to endure such horrors—no one should.

"But God is generous in his lessons, and in his blessings." Imam lifted his head to the sky. "It seems so much more beautiful now, doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"The sky," Imam said. "It is always more captivating when you never expected to see it again."

Jack looked back up. The old man was right—the sky was beautiful. It felt good to give words as to why. But giving further thought to them, Jack couldn't help but drop her gaze and cast it briefly over to the self-proclaimed murderer she'd been traveling with for the past two weeks. A handful of words kept echoing in her mind, and made the sky seem much less important.

…_never expect to see it again._


	3. Animal

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11. Animal

The door to the bar swung slowly open, and even though the barkeep and local regulars had been given enough time to grow to expect his arrival, no one had ever been able to shake the shiver that ran down their spines when that sightless gaze swept the room. No one had ever seen the eyes behind the tinted goggles, and quite honestly, no one really wanted to.

Riddick chose his favorite table in one corner of the room, close to the door but just barely out of the sight of a window. He tapped a couple of heavy knuckles on the tabletop and ordered his drink. He didn't have long to wait—he only ever ordered one thing, and the service here was good.

He was just lifting the bottle to his lips when a smoke-scoured voice drifted to him from the next booth.

"So, who let you out of your cage?"

It took Riddick a couple of seconds to analyze and recognize the voice. The man turned around so he'd have a face to match with it. Riddick's brow creased and his hackles raised. Merc. And he wasn't alone. At least five men sat around his table, each packing heavy, from what the convict could tell.

"I wanna know who I should call to collect on your pretty head."

"Toombs," Riddick growled, more amusement than anger. "Long time no smell."

"Charming as ever," the mercenary grinned around yellow teeth.

"Couldn't say the same for you. What brings you to New Mecca?"

The man shrugged nonchalantly, but that grin wouldn't leave his face—the grin that said he'd found something, and wasn't going to leave it alone. It was reflected in a number of his comrades, one of which looking particularly tickled. It meant trouble for Riddick. And trouble was something he'd been happy to have nothing to do with over the last few weeks.

"This and that," Toombs tossed out. "What about you? Big bad cue-ball got a burning need to visit the holiest city this side of the Regent System?"

"Something like that." This was becoming rapidly unentertaining.

The trigger-happy looking fellow—a skinny man with a shock of blonde hair and an acid grin that leapt too quick to his face—suddenly leaned forward, apparently impatient with the pace of this conversation and decided to assert his position in the crew.

"We heard you been runnin' wit' a new pack now," blondie confided in the convict, his grin betraying the hope that this news would invoke some kind of effect in the convict.

"That so?" Riddick indulged him.

"S'right," blondie returned, disappointment shadowing his eyes, but the dirty grin held up. "Seems the big bad wolf's runnin' with a pair o' lambs now—kid and a holy man."

He waited again for any kind of response from Riddick, again in vain. This time his grin drooped. His bleached brows knit together as he went on.

"Wassa matter?" he jerked his chin at Riddick, the manic grin back for more. "Yeh getcher jimmies offa plumpin' em up or somm'in'?"

Riddick waited patiently for this man to cease his butchering of whatever dialect he was using as a couple of his comrades shook with a quiet and menacing laughter. He left no space for them to realize this meant nothing to him before turning his sightless gaze on Toombs, inclining his head as if to ask, _And you go this one_ _**where?**_

"'Course that's just the rumor goin' around," the mercenary shrugged, a lit cigarette having found its way between his teeth during the course of his crewmate's divulgence. "Care to disprove it for us?"

"No need."

Riddick drained the last of his drink and stood, making it clear that he believed the conversation to be over. When his back was turned, acid-grin aimed a fiercely disbelieving look at Toombs, who sighed and drew his gun. The rest of his crew made sure their safety locks were off. The sound of a cocked weapon made Riddick stop, but it took the space of a single consideration for him to look over his shoulder at the mercenaries.

"Oh, come on," Toombs drawled around his smoke. "You know I didn't just come here for a quiet drink."

"I did," Riddick said. "Thanks for making it more interesting."

Toombs nodded obligingly, tipping the barrel of his gun to his forehead. "Anytime."

Acid-grin suddenly got to his feet, drawing his gun and aiming it at Riddick's head. Too far to the left. He could tilt his neck a bit, and it wouldn't even graze his ear.

"You're no' goin' anywhere, mate," he challenged.

No one noticed as Riddick and Toombs smirked in an ironic sync.

"No," said the convict, turning slowly. "You are."

The first shiv seemed to come out of nowhere, catching acid-grin in the collarbone. He went down with a shrill cry and the blast of his gun. He'd been holding too tight to the trigger. The bullet lodged itself harmlessly in the ceiling.

The next two shivs came a bit more obviously from sheaths on Riddick's ribs, under his arms, ripping through clothing and burying themselves in seatbacks, effectively encumbering two of Toombs' five. The last two had just drawn their weapons, which Riddick swept out of their hands in one kick. He'd laid the both of them out cold before their weapons had finished skittering across the floor.

That just left Toombs.

A sudden sharp pain and a burst of blood.

Correction: Toombs and his sniper.

Riddick found the mercenary with his eyes, fingering the hole in his shoulder and finding hot blood on his fingertips. He gave the curly-haired commander a nod of appreciation.

_So you've actually learned something since we last met._

Toombs grinned back.

_So it bleeds after all._

They drew simultaneously, Toombs swinging his barrel around and firing in the instant that Riddick rolled, effectively dodging the bullet and throwing out an arm, sweeping a fist between which was lodged a claw-like knife. It drew across the mercenary's knee and brought the man down with an angry grunt.

Toombs came down heavy on his good knee and, true to his nature as a stubborn ass, brought up his gun for another shot, but found himself training his sights on air. He glanced around wildly, but Riddick was nowhere in sight.

"Where are you…."

The room was suddenly doused in shadow. Toombs sucked in a lungful of air. He felt blind and deaf, since the civilian screams had bled off into the streets. Even the bartender seemed to have deserted his post.

Getting painfully to his feet, Toombs fought his senses and strained his eyes, ordering them to adjust. Any kind of movement…that wasn't one of his as-of-yet-still-alive crew.

_I really need to stop digging in shitholes for these goddamned meat shields._

"Riiiidiiiick…." he called.

The light peck of a sniper's bullet striking stone. Toombs whipped around. Nothing followed the noise.

For a long time, there was only shadows and useless noises. Acid-grin groaned on the floor. Toombs told him to shut up. Something had changed. Something out there in the darkness had shifted. But he still couldn't see it.

It took him a couple of moments to realize it wasn't something he could see, or hear. In fact, none of his senses were picking this up—but his instincts were screaming at him.

He was being hunted.

"Riddick." The word came out more rigidly this time. Anything to fill the heavy air around him with something other than his own fear. "_Riddick_."

There was a horrible retching noise and the accompanying sound of a messy expiration. Toombs whipped around and trained his gun on the fresh corpse, but barely had time to search around for the executioner before another gurgle of blood-drowned breath cut through the air. This one had been closer.

"Riddick!" Toombs hissed.

"Aaaaah!"

This time, Toombs could see the hunter's next victim. Acid-grin was being dragged into the shadows. The mercenary leapt for the blonde's legs and fastened one hand on his boot. He couldn't grab the other one unless he let got of his gun.

"Aaaaugh shit!" he blathered. "Help! Help me!"

Toombs pulled uselessly on his boot, and the blonde's screams intensified. Riddick was toying with this one.

"Riddick!" Toombs heard himself screaming, the noise mingling with the boy's screams.

"My _fingers_!" the blonde shrieked. "He's go' my _fuckin' fingers_!"

Toombs couldn't stand it anymore. He let go of the gun and threw his other hand around the guy's leg, managing to finally yank him out of the shadows and into the stream of ambient light that filtered through the bar's dirty windows.

The blonde was still flailing and shrieking, throwing his arms and hands over his face as if to protect himself. All of his fingers, Toombs could see, were perfectly intact. He grabbed the guy's collar and slapped him across the face. In the wake of his panic, there was the echo of a deep laugh.

Toombs got up, a snarl plastered on his pockmarked face. The gun was back in his hand, but his finger wasn't on the trigger.

"That fuck!" the blonde raged. "That sick fuck! Bastard. That rat bast—"

Another peck of air and a pea-sized hole appeared in the blonde's head, effectively silencing him. Toombs couldn't quite bring himself to care. In fact, he wished it'd happened sooner.

"Nice shot," he called into the darkness. "Am I supposed to be next?"

He waited. No reply.

"Riddick?"

Still nothing. Not even the spit of a snipe.

"Riddick?"

A feral growl in the darkness. Toombs' gun went up and he whirled around. There—a glint of reflective goggles.

"Skittish, Toombs," Riddick rumbled, fading back into the shadows. "Very skittish."

Toombs stood there, panting, until the smell of gore woke him up and he realized this was what he was doing. He threw his gun down in disgust.

This would not happen again.

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**AN: So. We likies better? Mayhaps?**


	4. Rage

Author's Note: Most definitely THE shortest fanfic I've ever written. But since these are little installments of something much bigger to come, I suppose I could pass this off as a teaser.

Thoughts taken from the heart of a lone Furyan; some of his last from the surface of Crematoria, set to words from my own hand. I hope they do not disappoint.

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23. Rage

I never thought I'd meet one of my own kind.

Figures the only one I'd ever met in the flesh would go and kill himself right afterwards. But his death meant something to me. It made me angry.

It could have been the glow that woman gave me, but I could feel it in my veins—a raw fury that knew only one thing. There was one man responsible for taking away from me everything I'd ever known. My home. My people. Kyra.

Rage made my blood boil, thinking of how they'd do to her like they did that Furyan.

I wouldn't let them. Wouldn't let him.

He'd shed a lot of blood in the name of fear. Now he'd bleed.

I'd see to it personally.

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AN: As before, I'd appreciate any kind of feedback. Riddick is the one character I'm working the hardest to capture, as he is the one who deserves the most justice done to his name. He is also a terribly unfamiliar medium. Anyone with any experience/success writing his type, I'd encourage you to come forward and offer your advice; particularily guys. I'm not terribly adept at writing the opposite gender. 


	5. Lost Scene

Author's Note: Sorry this one was so long in coming, guys. Been hitting a bit of a roadblock where Riddick is concerned. I've actually had this one on file for a while, but felt it was incomplete, and couldn't figure out how to end it. But a friend convinced me that it belonged on the boards, so here it is, for all your viewing pleasure. Hope it doesn't dissappoint!

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4. Lost Scene

In the volcanic cavern, sounds echoed easily, despite the cushion of so many ragged, dirty bodies that clustered its cages. The drip of perspiring stone under the dramatically changing daily temperature. The heavy fall of bootsteps along the iron walkways. The steady drag and heave of human breath. Riddick didn't need his eyeshine to see that Crematoria was a stinking, sulfur-and-sweat, class-A hellhole.

Just the way he'd left it.

It was nice to know that some things never changed. Not Toombs, or his expectantly moronic choice of hired hands. Not Imam, and the irritatingly relentless preaching of his precious morals. Not even this place, with its death-black walls streaked with human despair. But some things do.

Some did.

"The name's Kyra, now," she'd told him before leaping over the railing. "And I'm a new kind of animal."

It had been amusing at first—trying to impress him with whatever she'd learned in the five years he'd been gone, rambling off the exact location of his previously foreign and well-hidden 'sweet spot.' She'd even brought old Jack back for a couple of lines, teasing him with the past before she got a little too touchy with those nail clippers for his comfort. The 'kiss' she'd left him afterwards was what helped the message sink in—_Jack isn't here anymore. A new animal has taken her place. _

He let it bother him for just a couple breaths. So the girl had changed her colors. Maybe she'd be less of a hassle to drag out of here than he'd previously thought. Then again, she could be more trouble—she had more bite to her bark, now. But there was only room for one cold-blooded killer in this outfit, and it wasn't going to be some shiv-happy teenager.

He watched her now, going over the barbs and blades she had hidden on various parts of her body, considering briefly the razor she'd used to knick him with earlier, then tucking it carefully back into its slot at the roof of her mouth, pressed against her molars. A smirk tugged at one corner of her lips.

"You gonna just sit there and watch me," her ice-colored eyes darted to his hiding place. "Or did you want something?"

Unconcerned that she'd spotted him, and equally disinterested in how long she'd known, Riddick emerged from the shadows, rolling his shoulders against the uneven stone of the cavern wall. Dark lenses hid all—if any—emotion his silver eyes would have betrayed.

"Quite a collection you've got there," he commented.

"Keeps the bed bugs off." Her laugh was humorless. She took a rag to a small knife she'd conjured from one of her sleeves.

He wondered about her reply, but not enough to ask. Not enough to know. Sometimes it was better to wonder.

"You come here with those mercs?" she asked, indicating the chamber above their heads where the newcomers had been bargaining not long before. She didn't really need an answer, and he didn't offer one.

"How many of 'em did you kill before they got you here?"

"Counting the first crew?"

That got a wicked grin out of her, but it also raised a question she'd been itching to ask him since she first saw him down here.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

Tilting his head a bit, he considered the question in a way that made her think he was going to answer, but the silence was too expectant for that. She stopped her cleaning.

"Not for me." It was almost a question.

"I didn't come here for my health."

The look she gave him was almost one of incredulity. She waited, as if for him to admit he was joking.

"You're serious," she said finally, a touch of something in her voice that Riddick didn't like. "You really came down here for me."

"Surprised?" He almost growled. Did she have to be so disbelieving?

The look of skepticism dropped when she lowered her eyelashes, to be replaced with an ironic curl of her mouth.

"I guess I shouldn't be," she said, tucking her polished blade away where it wouldn't be seen. "You being the big hero and everything. You always did come back for me…."

Recollections of their brief eternity on the dark planet leapt into both their minds then, the silence thick with apprehension for the space of a couple memories.

"Except when you didn't."

In his night vision, her eyes blazed for a split second with something horribly primal. It flowed down her neck and into her spine as she shifted her weight and came up into crouch.

"Did you think you were helping us? Running away like you did? Letting the mercs follow you away from New Mecca and getting them off our trails?" Another knife appeared quite suddenly in her hand. "Did you think you were protecting us? Did you think about what would happen once the big guns left? When we became marked, because we'd been seen with an escaped convict who'd somehow got out of the city alive? When Imam found his family and washed his hands of me? When Regan went out one night and didn't come back? When I—?"

She bit back her last words, but he knew what they were going to be.

_When I was left alone._

Her words came out different when she spoke them, but there was only one that rang clear in Riddick's mind.

_Betrayal._

"Jack—"

"Don't. Call me that."

Her eyes blazed again; longer this time. They were red-rimmed with old sorrows long lamented. Now only anger burned there, tears turned to salt in the flame.

"I told you." She stood slowly, chin lifted with an expression that would have been intimidating to anyone else. "The name's Kyra."

Kyra.

Riddick had tried the name on his tongue earlier, but it had felt wrong, and left a bad taste in his mouth. It didn't fit at all with the kid he'd kept in his mind.

But she wasn't a kid anymore—she'd made that painstakingly clear. Nothing was left in this woman before him that could be put to the name 'Jack.' But 'Kyra' fit this creature like a glove.

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AN: You're not crazy if you think this feels like it ends a bit too abruptly. Like I said, I've been trying for quite a while to come up with an extension of the ending, but had no such luck. I'm open to suggestion here, folks, and would greatly appreciate it!


	6. Hunger

**Author's Note: I really must apologize to anyone who ever offered me generous critique, or who has followed my work with any measure of loyalty. This next piece is my tentative idea of the intro to the full-length fic I want to write eventually. As per usual, any amount of criticism would be welcome.**

**The quest for 'essence of Riddick' continues!**

* * *

For what seemed like an eternity they'd been traveling. Waiting, watching, hoping for someone to pick them up. Fry had come up with a pretty decent plan—pack the ship with enough fuel cells to get them off the planet and maybe even out of the system with some spare power for a signal. She didn't count on there being no one to contact. 

There was another downside to this disposable life-raft. No food. Sure, they had found a few rations once they'd taken the time to search, but those had been long since devoured, even carefully consumed as they were.

Jack didn't know how long it had been since she'd eaten last. There was no way of telling the passage of time out here in space. Too hungry to move, too tired to sleep, she was left to her thoughts for the most part. But all she could think about was the utter endlessness of it all.

Not long ago, she'd been on that transport ship, in a perpetual sleep, waiting to arrive on a planet she knew she'd never reach now. Then they'd found a planet they thought lived in uninterrupted daylight, until they'd been swallowed by the eclipse' shadow.

From endless sleep, to endless day, to endless night, and now to an endless space, which would eventually lead to three very end-able lives.

Not for the first time, Jack rolled her head over where it rested on the ship wall to aim her tired gaze at the pilot seat. Riddick's strong arm held still to the engine toggle and, not for the first time, Jack wondered how long it would take after they died for Riddick to perish. There was no doubt in her mind that the silver-eyed convict would outlast both her and the holy man—the fact that he could still move was enough indication of that.

"Hey…Riddick?" she rasped. No way of telling how many days she'd gone on just the planet water and ship provisions. Five days on the ship asleep…maybe two days on that planet…plus the time they'd spent on this ship came out to…a million lifetimes.

The pilot didn't answer.

"Riddick?"

"I told you," came the rumbling reply. "Not to waste oxygen."

"Whatsit matter?" she laughed humorlessly. "We're gonna starve to death anyway."

More silence.

"Riddick?"

"What?" He sounded annoyed.

"When we die, are you gonna eat us?"

Across the metal grated floor from Jack, Imam faded back into consciousness. The girl's morbidity was something he'd grown accustomed to on their trip, riddling the convict with questions about his sentence and what he'd done to the people he'd murdered. But with nothing else to cling to on this husk of a ship, he found himself hanging on the silence that was pregnant with their pilot's answer.

"No," was the eventual reply.

Imam let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

"Why not?"

"Nothing to cook you with."

This brought another ragged laugh from the kid, but Imam found himself wondering if the self-proclaimed murderer was kidding or not. Leaving the less than pleasant thought alone, he turned instead to what he'd been devoting most of his energy to since they'd left the surface of that hellish planet—prayer.

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**AN: Hey, if you've been following in the past, please go check out 'Animal'! I've re-written it because I agreed with everyone that Riddick was not written very well. Hope this new one sits well!**


End file.
